Decision Points

China had been chosen to host.
    He gave me an update on the construction process. I told him I was coming to the Games. I knew I would face pressure not to, and many would try to politicize the Olympics, but I promised he could count onme to attend. “I’ve got my hotel reservations already,” I joked. He looked relieved.
    The Beijing Olympics were one of the highlights of my final year in office. I flew over on Air Force One with Laura and Barbara, my brother Marvin, my sister-in-law Margaret, and our friends Roland and Lois Betts and Brad Freeman . Mother, Dad, and Doro met us in China. Dad and I joined Ambassador Sandy Randt , who served in Beijing all eight years, to open a huge new American embassy. It was quite a change from the small diplomatic post Dad led thirty-three years earlier. In an extraordinary gesture of generosity, President Hu hosted a lunch for us all at the government’s Zhongnanhai Compound, a Bush family reunion like none before or since.

    (
From left:
) My niece Lauren, sister Doro, Barbara, Dad, Hu Jintao , Laura, brother Marvin, and sister-in-law Margaret.
White House/Shealah Craighead
    The Beijing Olympics turned out to be a phenomenal success—and a lot of fun. We were at the Water Cube when the men’s swimming team staged a dramatic comeback to edge out France for the gold medal in the freestyle relay. I dropped by to watch the impressive team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh practice for their beach volleyball match. I made international news by giving Misty a playful slap on the back—a little north of the traditional target. We visited the locker room before Team USA and China squared off in the most-watched basketball game in history. The players couldn’t have been more gracious or impressive. “Hey, Pops!” LeBron James called out when Dad entered the room.

    At the Beijing Olympics.
White House/Eric Draper
    The Olympics gave the world a chance to see the beauty and creativity of China. My hope is that the Games also gave the Chinese people a glimpse of the wider world, including the possibility of an independent press, open Internet, and free speech. Time will tell what the long-term impact of the Beijing Olympics will be. But history shows that once people get a taste of freedom, they eventually want more.

    November 23, 2002, was a rainy, gray day in Bucharest. Yet tens of thousands had turned out in Revolution Square to mark Romania ’s admission to NATO, a landmark development for a country that just fifteen years earlier was a Soviet satellite state and a member of the Warsaw Pact. AsI approached the stage, I noticed a brightly lit balcony. “What is that?” I asked the advance man. He told me it was where Nicolai Ceausescu , the communist dictator of Romania, had given his last speech before he was overthrown in 1989.
    As President Ion Iliescu introduced me, the rain stopped and a full-spectrum rainbow appeared. It stretched across the sky and ended right behind the balcony that was lit as a memorial to freedom. It was a stunning moment. I ad-libbed: “God is smiling on us today.”

    Congratulating Romania on its admission into NATO.
White House/Paul Morse
    Romania was not the only young democracy celebrating that day. I had also cast America’s vote to admit Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia into NATO. I viewed NATO expansion as a powerful tool to advance the freedom agenda. Because NATO requires nations to meet high standards for economic and political openness, the possibility of membership acts as an incentive for reform.
    A year after my speech in Bucharest, a charismatic young democrat named Mikheil Saakashvili burst into the opening session of parliament in the former Soviet republic of Georgia . Speaking for thousands of Georgian demonstrators, he denounced the assembly as the illegitimate result of a corrupt election. President Eduard Shevardnadze felt the groundswell and resigned. The bloodless coup became known as the Rose Revolution. Six weeks later, the Georgian people went to the polls and chose Saakashvili to be their president.
    In November 2004, a similar wave of protests broke out after a fraudulent presidential election in Ukraine . Hundreds of thousands braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko . At one point during the campaign, Yushchenko suffered a mysterious poisoning that disfigured his face. Yet he refused to drop out of the race. His supporters turned out